Word on the Twitter board is that Dark Habits got a shout out from the /Filmcast (with guest Kevin Smith who funnily enough I interviewed a few years back for Jersey Girl) for my interview with Zack Snyder, which is totally awesome on several levels. Just thought I'd say thanks to Dave Chen for the plug and welcome to anyone who bothers to swing by and check out Dark Habits.
Keep up the good work Dave, Devindra and Adam, love the /Filmcast and anyone who hasn't should totally check it out. If my carload of readers can add to their minions then my work here is done.
Showing posts with label Dark Habits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dark Habits. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Shout out
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Watchmen review: some early thoughts
So the embargo (Australian at least – already a punch up brewing between US critics on twitter as I write) has been lifted and today I saw Watchmen for the second time. I haven't as yet been able to sit down a really bash out all my thoughts on the film in a critical fashion (that's for later tonight) but here I just want to share with you my impressions and reflection on the experience as well as my reaction to the film...
There's going to be something like two distinct groups of people who go to see Watchmen at the cinema: those who have read the graphic novel and have experienced the months and months of endless anticipation and build up to the release; and then there will be those who haven't read the novel and are just going because the trailer looks great, it's full of superheroes and the advertising spend is huge.
Falling into the previous of those two my feelings are that the film is absolutely a success and can bare the weight of expectation for anyone reasonably-minded. For the uninitiated I envy the wild ride you are about to embark on, the transformation the comic book genre might take in your perception and that as a result you too might be encouraged to seek out the original book and read it for the first time, experiencing a property that has meant so much to so many for so long.
Contained within the glorious opening punch-up and the wonderfully vaudevillian credits sequenced played out to Bob Dylan's 'Times They Are A-Changing' are the beats, themes and spirit in which director Zack Snyder has gone about capturing the essence of Watchmen. Darkness and the loss of innocence is all pervasive.
Stripped from the film are elements such as the Black Freighter (to be inserted separately and in its entirety in the director's ultimate cut on DVD), sub plots with psychiatrist's home life, and police detectives. Snyder, using David Hayter and Alex Tse's fission-fused screenplay, resolutely stays as close as possible to Rorschach's (Jackie Earle Hayley) mean streets noir pursuit of Edward Blake's (masked 'hero' The Comedian) killer. Hayley is brilliant as the menacing, snarling, ass-kicking masked vigilante with sociopathic tendencies. Rorschach looks and moves the part as he slopes about the rain-drenched city in his fedora, trechcoat and ink-oscillating mask before leaping into action with the reflexes of a puma when called upon.
Patrick Wilson hits all the rights notes as washed-up Nite Owl Dan Dreiberg, always with a simmering strength beneath his bookish exterior. Malin Akerman doesn't always convince in her line delivery, though this might be do to some too literal page to screen transfers of slightly clunky dialogue, but does reach levels of wonder, hurt and innocence in the character of Laurie (Silk Spectre II). She also looks great and kicks ass in leather. And Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian? He nails it, you'll wanna hate him, but he's just too fucking good... argh.
I don't have time to write much more at this junction, I've another screening to go to, but the bigger themes of Watchmen are truly to be found within Snyder's film. Questions of humanity, determinism, mutually assured destruction are all handled well and concisely for the discerning viewer – never lost amid a flurry of slo-mo action sequences that are frankly stunning. Punches land with thunderous impacts, bones snap with sickening cracks, knifes plunge into flesh, glass shatters and blood splatters. Snyder showed up what he could do with 300, and revels in his style here whilst never going overboard.
There are definitely flaws: Ozymandias is largely a disconnected figure hard to associate with and the tougher philosophical questions his character asks, as well as his place in an argument of good and evil, is not as well-delineated as I would have liked and as a result the ending suffers just enough to notice. Second time round this came across much better, but I think I was filling in more gaps this time round. Also Matthew Goode might be the weakest of all the castings – which is disappointing.
Watchmen is a wholly satisfying intellectual and emotional experience as a film removed from its paper context, and one hell of a action ride. For my money it was better than The Dark Knight, which people forget was far from a perfect film itself.
WatchmenQ&As to appear here this week with Zack and Debbie Snyder, Malin Akerman and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Watchmen is released in cinemas March 6, 2009.
Scott Henderson
Monday, February 23, 2009
The following is a list of recent interviews by Scott Henderson (to see more click here)...
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE (03/02/09)
MALIN AKERMAN (Watchmen, 24/02/09)
DAVID FIELD (director, The Combination, 23/02/09)
JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN (Watchmen, 25/02/2009)
MIKE RELM (03/02/09)
DEBORAH SNYDER (producer, Watchmen, 25/02/09)
ZACK SNYDER (Watchmen, 27/02/09)
STILL FLYIN' (03/02/09)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
To see the MOST RECENT FILM REVIEWS on Dark Habits CLICK HERE.
Or to read the most recent DVD reviews click here.
Alternative take a look through the following complete alphabetical list of film reviews by Scott Henderson (there are many more to come as I continue to upload my old work for DVD Review):
(NB: some reviews link to external sites)
21 Grams – DVD (6/4/04)
25th Hour – DVD (16/1/04)
American Splendor – DVD (11/03/04)
Angels & Demons (20/05/09)
Appaloosa – Shotgun Critic (14/03/09)
As Good As It Gets – DVD (6/4/04)
A Time To Kill (Channel4, 2005)
Balibo (15/08/09)
Black Ice (21/01/09)
Bottle Shock (27/03/09)
Bronson (15/08/09)
Brood, The (Channel 4, 2005)
Buffalo Soliders – DVD (11/3/04)
Burma VJ (2008)
Cedar Boys (15/08/09)
Chicago (Kamera.co.uk – 2003)
Combination, The (23/03/09)
Dark Crystal, The – DVD (12/03/04)
Duplicity (18/03/09)
Elegy (3D World, 05/04/09)
Fast & Furious (20/04/2009)
Friday The 13th (2009) (10/04/09)
Frozen River (17/02/09)
Gomorrah (20/05/09)
Last Ride (24/05/09)
Inglourious Basterds (15/08/09)
I Love You, Man (21/04/09)
In America – DVD (11/3/04)
International, The (18/02/09)
Intolerable Cruelty – DVD (15/1/04)
Italian Job, The (2003) – DVD (2/13/04)
Labyrinth – DVD (12/3/04)
Mary And Max (10/04/09)
My Bloody Valentine (17/02/09)
Open Range – DVD (2/13/04)
Ran – DVD (07/04/04)
Reader, The (19/02/09)
Runaway Jury – DVD (11/03/04)
Shallow Ground (Channel4, 2005)
Spirited Away – DVD (11/3/04)
Stir Of Echoes – DVD (22/10/04)
Stuck On You – DVD (06/04/04)
Synecdoche, New York (20/05/09)
Tenderness (20/05/09)
Terminator Salvation (2009)
There's Something About Mary – DVD (06/04/04)
Tricks (Sztuczki) (16/02/09)
Two Fists One Heart (17/03/09)
Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans (27/01/09)
Uninvited, The (27/03/09)
Watchmen (01/03/09)
Wendy And Lucy (03/04/09)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (28/04/09)
Saturday, March 1, 2008
'24' creator Joel Surnow and Carlos Bernard, DVD Review #80 Zach Braff and Natalie Portman for Garden State, DVD Review #77 M Night Shyamalan and Bryce Dallas Howard for The Village, DVD #73 Morgan Spurlock – DVD Review #72 Chris Kentis, writer/director of Open Water Alejandro González Iñárritu for 21 Grams, DVD Review #68 Lost In Translation feature, DVD Review #66 Edward Zwick and Tom Cruise for The Last Samurai, DVD Review #65 Director Kevin Macdonald for Touching The Void, DVD Review #63 Edward Norton Jr and Spike Lee for 25th Hour, DVD Review #61
To tell you a little something of the person who writes these pages...
Scott Henderson is a freelance journalist currently based in Sydney, Australia with a 10 years experience writing mainly about film, but also on subjects as diverse as music, lifestyle, youth culture, history, politics, technology and even the paranormal ("sometimes shit happens, someone has to deal with it, and who ya gonna call?")
A former features editor for DVD Review magazine (now DVD and Blu-ray Review), Scott has contributed to SBS, Hotdog, Total Film, SFX, Senses of Cinema, Essential Home Cinema, Channel 4 Film, Time Out, Home Entertainment Week and Scifi Now. In 2008 Scott was the website coordinator at the Sydney Film Festival, where he also co-produced and hosted a daily video podcast from the festival.
When Scott hasn't been writing about film and making magazines he has: gained an MA in Anthropology and Cultural Politics, traveled in America for a year, worked and snowboarded for a season in New Zealand picking veggies in Victoria. He is currently to be found plying his trade as a film critic and writer for Street Press Australia, The Vine and Filmink.
Below is are a few of the features Scott has written over the past few years, though not all his published work by any means.
You can contact Scott via scott.journalist[at]gmail.com
NB: the thumbnails are not links, just the text guys, just the text.
PUBLISHED INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES BY SCOTT HENDERSON:
Paul Verhoeven and Michael Ironside for Total Recall, DVD Review #78
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tinker, tailor
After launching one sleepless night all of two days ago, Dark Habits continues to evolve. I've added an RSS feed to the page you you can be sure never to miss a post and if you look down the right hand site you will find a host of websites to investigate. If you don't want to navigate away from Dark Habits (why would you?!?) just apple click or cntrl click to open in a new window. The festivals section is as yet incomplete, but its a somewhat thankless tedious task copy and pasting the link into blogger so that is what there is for now.
I would ask that anyone you can think of film/tv related sites to add please email them to me or comment at the end of this post. I was also thinking of creating a list of podcast at some point if that's of interest - i have a few in mind, but suggestions of more greatly received.
Some plans that I am currently working on for the manner in which Dark Habits receives its attention day by day: short analysis of my favourites online movies reads; whether they be ezines or blogs; weekly water cooler poll; The Lost Column, out this weekend overview; or am I giving too much away. Well, keep your eyes to the ground.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Strangers in the dark
"Chapter one.
He adored cinema. He romanticised it all out of proportion, as he was with much of life. To him, no matter the time of year, there always existed a small theatre where strangers gazed at shadows dancing to the hypnotic notes of a John Williams score."
No, that's not it. Let's try that again...
"Chapter one.
He was too romantic about film. He loved the predictability almost as much as he loved the unexpected. To him, the movies meant femme fatales and hard-boiled private dicks who seemed to know all the tricks."
Ach, too cliché – not for my taste, but everyone else for sure. How about something more profound...
"Chapter one.
He adored cinema. To him it was a battleground of our consciousness and a metaphor for our schizophrenic soul. The same lack of integrity that caused so many people to become apathetic was turning the cinema of his dreams..."
Woah, lighten up will ya. I still want people to read this thing.
"Chapter one.
He adored cinema, although to him it was a metaphor for the schizophrenia of our soul and the downfall of our dreams. How hard it was to watch films corrupted by advertising, celebrity, executive power, censorship, Tom Cruise..."
Too angry, I don't want to be angry.
"Chapter one.
He was as torn and romantic as the movies he loved.
Behind his carefully arranged desk was the coiled insight of a malcontent critic. Cinema was his art; and it always would be."
[Oh, and welcome to Dark Habits – a new project from Just Another Clumsy Romantic]
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